Grape Expectations: A Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery With Recipes Read online

  “Agnes, dear,” I said patiently, “when Lot’s wife fled Sodom and Gomorrah, she turned around to look at the burning cities, and God turned her into a pillar of salt. I was only thinking of your health. Aren’t you on a sodium-restricted diet?”

  “Magdalena, you obviously haven’t heard.”

  “Enlighten me, dear.”

  “Well, Ed Gingerich—”

  “No, I meant that literally. Please step in all the way. You’re blocking my light.”

  She squeezed into the space not occupied by my desk. “Like I was about to say, did you know that Ed sold his farm to those folks from California?”

  “Yes, for the experimental fruit farm.”

  “Experimental, my asterisk. There’ll be grapes on that farm.”

  If only I had the freedom to swear like Agnes. “There’s nothing wrong with grapes, dear. They’re mentioned many times in the Bible.”

  “And so is wine. You’re not suggesting that wine is okay too, are you, Magdalena?”

  “Heavens, no. But what does wine have to do with the farm Ed sold?”

  Agnes leaned forward, the better to emphasize her coup de grace. Her wispy hair, unrestrained by any sort of covering, fluttered dangerously near the fan blades.

  “The Californians intend to build a winery.”

  “Oh my.”

  “And a hotel.”

  I leaped to my feet, taking my temper with me. “A what?”

  “Not just any hotel, Magdalena, but a five-star luxury hotel. They’ll have one-thousand-thread-count sheets on the beds—like ‘butter’ the brochure says. And gourmet meals prepared by French chefs. Oh, and a spa with mud treatments and hot stones. What’s the deal with hot stones, Magdalena?”

  I hadn’t the foggiest. Once when I was a child at Lake Wannamakya church camp, Johnny Armbruster told me to lie still on the beach while he covered me with pebbles. But then Johnny started getting careless where he put his hands, so I told him to get his rocks off and play by himself. Those stones had been lying in the sun, and thus pretty hot, but it was not a pleasant experience by any means.

  “Do you have this brochure?”

  Agnes fished around in a pocketbook large enough to contain Richard Simmons. “Here,” she finally said, and handed me a wrinkled but very classy brochure.

  My heart sank as I flipped through the glossy pages. Grape Expectations, the new enterprise was calling itself. Prize winning wines grown on the premises. Food and lodging fit for a king. Even horseback riding. And a gift shop offering authentic Amish arts and crafts, as well as Amish cheese and a “dazzling variety of home-canned treats, such as pickles, apple butter, and jams.”

  “I’m ruined,” I wailed.

  “Magdalena, this is no time to focus on your indiscretion, not when our entire way of life is at stake here.”

  Give me mad over sad any day. “I wasn’t referring to my inadvertent adultery,” I snapped. “I’m talking about my business. Who is going to want to sleep on burlap sheets when they can get butter?”

  “You give your guests burlap sheets?”

  “Only if they pay extra. Besides, burlap is exfoliating. No need for loofah when you loaf in my beds. Still, I can’t compete—Wait just one Pittsburgh minute. Maybe I can compete! I can add a gift shop, and I already have a barn, so horses are not a problem. As for mud and stones, I’m sure I can come up with plenty.”

  “How about a French chef?”

  I sighed. My cook is Freni Hostetler, an Amish woman in her mid-seventies. Freni quits every other whipstitch—at last count it was ninety-eight times—but she always comes back to rule the roost. Besides being a dear friend and a mother substitute, she’s a passable cook. But Freni would quit for the last time if I brought in a French chef. “I’m ruined,” I said again. “Well, at any rate the PennDutch will be a thing of the past—unless I cut my prices drastically. Then there goes my Hollywood crowd. You know what they say: If it’s cheap, it can’t be trendy.”

  “Who says that?”

  “Don’t bother me for details, dear. Where did you get this brochure?”

  “From my cousin Martha, who sometimes does alterations for a lady out on Hungry Neck Road. Can you imagine someone not knowing how to sew, Magdalena?”

  “Where did Martha get it?”

  “She says there’s this billboard next to Ed’s drive, and there’s this plastic tube, or something, with these in it. It says to take one, so she did.”

  “One must never disobey the tube.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind, dear. I want to know how this could happen. How could the Bedford County Planning Commission let this slip by them? Wait!” I jumped to my feet, the top of my noggin just missing the ceiling fan. “Ed Gingerich’s land is within town limits. He’s got to get permission from the town council, of which yours truly is not only a member but its president Bye-bye, Grape Expectations.”

  Agnes Mishler was irritatingly unmoved by my decisive victory over one-thousand-count-thread sheets. “Sorry, Magdalena, but you’re wrong.”

  “I am so president of the town council; that’s part and parcel of being the mayor.”

  “You’re wrong about the town limits. Remember about fifteen years ago when Ed and some other folks out there on Hungry Neck Road petitioned the town to extend its limits so that they could hook up to the water and sewer lines, but yous voted that down on account that it would cost more to run the lines out there than yous could collect in revenues?”

  “Don’t you ‘yous’ me, dear. I wasn’t on the council then.”

  “You are now. So what are you going to do about it?”

  “What can I do?”

  Agnes toyed with a chin hair. “Well, you could bully Ed. You’ve always been good at that.”

  “I have not!”

  “Remember the time—”

  “No time for memory lane,” I sang, and squeezing past my desk, pushed Agnes gently out into the light.

  I drove straight over to the Gingerich farm. Ed’s wife, Fiona, has been dead for forty years. They never had children, so up until his retirement last fall, Ed worked the farm with hired help. This is an unusual situation in these parts, where families tend to be large and there is no lack of capable hands into which one can leave the family enterprise. Although Ed belongs to my church—Beechy Grove Mennonite—and I see him nearly every Sunday, I had no idea he was planning to sell the farm to winos—or would that be vintners?

  At any rate, Hungry Neck Road dead-ends five miles out of town, so unless one has a specific reason to go out that way, one rarely does. Therefore, I cannot be blamed for having no prior knowledge of the huge sign at the end of Ed’s gravel drive.

  COMING SOON—GRAPE EXPECTATIONS!

  A world-class resort for the lover of the grape. Meet us at www.grapeexpectations.com.

  “Well, we’ll just see about that,” I said aloud, and unwisely pushed the pedal to the metal. Even though I had traded in my sinfully red BMW for a more modest Crown Vic, the gravel was none the less punishing to my car’s exterior. It didn’t do much to improve my mood, either.

  Ed was sitting on a rocker on his front porch, looking for all the world like the retired man I thought he was and not the sneaky, backs tabbing real estate mogul that both Agnes and the sign made him out to be. The morning paper lay in his lap unopened.

  “Hello, Ed,” I said, after having scrounged in the basement of my emotions for some false cheer.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Hello, Magdalena.”

  “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”

  “Nope.”

  “Were you planning to share this bit of news, or were we supposed to guess once the limos started streaming into town?”

  “It’s not what you think, Magdalena.”

  Lacking an invitation from him, I invited myself to sit on his steps. “I think you made a bundle on this transaction.” “You know my roots in this community go back as far as yours. I love Hernia just as much as you
do.”

  “So what was it? A cool million?”

  “Nope.”

  I’d only been joking when I named a figure that high, but I breathed a sigh of relief anyway. At least for a little while more I wouldn’t have to share the title of millionaire.

  “Well, whatever it was, dear, I hope you got your money’s worth.”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Thousand? Look, Ed,” I said, trying to suppress some of the glee in my voice, “we’re not exactly on the same side here, but I got to tell you—you’ve been had. Taken to the cleaners, as they say.”

  “Million.”

  “Ha, ha, very funny.”

  “I don’t joke, Magdalena. You should know that as well.”

  He was right about that. Neither Ed nor I has a funny bone in our body.

  “But, Ed, you can’t be serious—”

  He nodded somberly. Somewhere between the house and the barn a rooster crowed. Meanwhile, I felt like I’d swallowed a gallon of molten lead.

  “They misrepresented themselves, Magdalena. First they said they wanted to grow grapes and produce jelly—you know, like Smucker’s. Then they said something about grape juice. I didn’t hear anything about wine until it was too late.”

  “Wine, swine. Get to the part about the luxury hotel and the spa. When did they mention those?”

  “At the closing. I swear it’s true, Magdalena, and you know I don’t use that word lightly.”

  We Mennonites, along with the Amish and Quakers, have historically held that our “yeas should be yeas, and our nays, nays,” just as the Bible commands us. Ed Gingerich had less personality than a bowl of congealed oatmeal, but he wasn’t a bar.

  “Why didn’t you back out then, Ed?”

  “Well, you see, I’d already signed some papers that I hadn’t read too carefully—you know, the small print—and because, uh... let’s face it, Magdalena: thirteen million dollars is a lot of money.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  “All I wanted was to be able to retire to Sarasota. Maybe do some saltwater fishing—I hear it’s a lot of fun. And play shuffleboard. You ever play shuffleboard, Magdalena?”

  “I’ve shuffled while bored, but I don’t think that counts. Ed, how long before you move?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Get out of town!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s just something my sister Susannah says. I think it’s Presbyterian. Anyway, I’m in shock. I really am. I just found out about this a few minutes ago, and tomorrow you leave.”

  “I feel sick about it, Magdalena.”

  “Funny, but money seldom does that to me.”

  “I’m serious. I wish I’d never signed those papers. I would give it all back, if I could.”

  “Money definitely doesn’t do that to me.”

  “I tried to, you know. After I got home and had a chance to think about it some more. But the real estate agent just laughed. She wouldn’t even give me the telephone number of anyone connected with Grape Expectations. She said I could give the money to charity if I felt that guilty, but no way was I going to get the farm back.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  He stared over my head at the bottomlands of Hungry Neck Creek. The Gingerich family had been farming the land since 1805, when a Delaware chief by the name of Hungry Neck sold the land to Isaiah and Beverly Gingerich, fresh off the boat at the conclusion of a journey that began in Switzerland. A man still has a right to do as he pleases in this country, and that includes playing shuffle- board. It was clear to me, however, that Ed Gingerich had not intended to sell his heritage along with the land. Yes, he was guilty of greed but not betrayal.

  “Ed, as it just so happens, I’ve got a vacancy at PennDutch this week. Why don’t you come and stay with me a couple of days. Maybe I can help you sort this out.”

  When, after a decent interval, Ed failed to respond, I spoke into a closed fist. This is another worldly trick I learned from Susannah.

  “Earth to Ed, Earth to Ed. Come in, Ed.”

  “They’re coming, Magdalena.”

  “Yes, and so is tomorrow. The Grape Expectations folks will be here before we leave, if you don’t give me an answer soon.”

  “They’re coming now.”

  I turned. A shiny limo was creeping up the long gravel drive.

  3

  If it would have done anyone even just a smidgen of good, I would have taken off my bra, gathered some choice pieces of gravel, and slain the advancing motorized beast. But neither fantasy nor sturdy Christian underwear was going to get Ed out of this pickle.

  First, I ordered him to get off his rocker. Then I climbed up on the porch and we stood shoulder to shoulder. I even reached for his hand but dropped it shortly thereafter; farmers have hands that range in texture from rough sandpaper to cheese graters.

  “United we stand, divided we fall, dear.”

  “Tell that to the walls of Jericho,” he muttered.

  When Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, he didn’t have to contend with Grape Expectations. Soon after the limo stopped, a beautiful young woman with sinfully long legs emerged, unfolding in the process like a butterfly emerging from a metal cocoon. Everything about her reeked of money and, of course, power. She also reeked of an expensive French perfume. The best perfumes, by the way, contain an oil derived from the anal glands of a civet cat. I learned this fact from a former guest, the owner of a perfume company that sold so-called fragrances at four hundred dollars an ounce. Why anyone would want to dab themselves with the business end of an animal is beyond my ken. Much better to use some butter with a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar. That’s guaranteed to attract a man’s attention. At any rate, I knew I had my hands full with the limo lady.

  I’m sure the handsome gentleman who accompanied the polished woman was a handful as well. Under torture I might admit that his dark brown curls and matching eyes sent a forbidden thrill to my nether regions. But whether my nether could weather this temptation remains a moot point, due to his two-day beard—made popular by Yasser Arafat, by the way—and rumpled clothes. Far from finding stubble attractive, I think the only place it belongs is in a grain field after harvest. At a distance the face of the man from Grape Expectations looked like it had been splattered with mud.

  The woman from Grape Expectations strode briskly up the walk. Rumpled-silt-skin followed a step behind.

  “Good morning,” she said. “You must be Mr. and Mrs. Gingerich.”

  “Not by a long shot, dear,” I said. After all, I am a good fifteen years younger than Ed.

  “Felicia Bacchustelli,” she said, extending her hand.

  “Vinny Bacchustelli,” he said, extending his hand as well.

  I loathe shaking hands. This antiquated custom—meant to show one is unarmed—is the number one purveyor of the common cold. But because most folks take offense if I don’t participate in the ritual passing of germs, I force myself to do it.

  “Magdalena Yoder,” I said. “This is Mr. Gingerich.”

  “We met yesterday at the closing,” he said.

  She nodded but avoided eye contact as she glanced around. “This has even more potential than I remembered. Of course the house will have to go, but the barn has possibilities. We could build the stables off to the left. Am I correct in understanding that the prevailing winds come from the west? I mean, we wouldn’t want the lodge to be on the downwind side, now, would we?”

  I sniffed. “I smell horse manure already.”

  “The house was built by my great-great-great-grandfather,” Ed said.

  “Yes, I’m sure it’s very nice,” Felicia said.

  “You said you were turning my place into an experimental fruit farm.”

  “We did mention grapes,” Vinny said. “The varieties we’ll plant have never been grown in this part of Pennsylvania. You can’t get any more experimental than that.”

  “You tricked me.”

  “Maybe you should have read
the fine print, Mr. Gingerich,” Felicia said.

  “Maybe you should not have taken advantage of an old man,” I said.

  “Maybe you should mind your own business, Miss Odor.”

  “That’s Yoder!”

  “Ladies, please,” Vinny said with a salacious smile. I had the feeling he’d have liked nothing better than to watch his wife and me engage in a catfight. Why men find that attractive, I haven’t the faintest. Ditto for that whole lesbian thing. But if push came to shove, I could see myself with two men: one to do the cleaning, the other the cooking.

  “Back oft pretty boy,” I said politely, remembering my Mennonite manners. “This is between your wife and me.”

  He chuckled. “Felicia isn’t my wife—she’s my sister-in- law.”

  “My husband, Albert, is dead now,” Felicia said. “He had a lot more class than his brother. Unfortunately, they were business partners.”

  “Yes, unfortunately,” Vinny said.

  I pulled myself up to my full five feet ten, which was considerably more than either of them could manage. “ ‘Unfortunate’ seems to be the operative word, dears. You see, the community will never allow the establishment of a den of debauchery such as the one you plan to build. We are teetotalers, every one of us—and if we aren’t, we know we ought to be. Some of us even abstain from tea. So, Mrs. and Mr. Baluchistani, I advise you to save yourselves further trouble and hightail it back to from whence you came.”

  “It’s Bacchustelli,” Felicia snipped.

  “Are you sure? I thought that was one of those post-Soviet-era countries that’s always in the news.”

  “I like a woman with fire,” Vinny said apropos of nothing but his testosterone level. “I don’t suppose you’d consider having dinner with me tonight.”

  “You might try dating the Statue of Liberty,” I said. “She has her own torch. You don’t often see a woman with her own torch.”

  “Please,” Ed begged. “Won’t you please consider selling this place back to me? I’ve got some money put away in an IRA. You can have it all.”

  Felicia smiled. “The bulldozers will be here at seven tomorrow morning.”

  There was no time to waste. I instructed Ed to gather up his most prized possessions and carry them to the front yard. Then I hopped into my car and stomped on the accelerator. I am shamed to say that the sound of gravel pinging against the limo was music to my ears. (I confessed my sin as soon as I was on the highway.)